ASO performs music from Oscar-winning films

Monday

Feb 24, 2014 at 5:00 PM

By Arlene BachanovDaily Telegram Special Writer

For many people, movies have helped form a backdrop to much of life.

After all, you remember the film you lined up at midnight for so you’d be one of the first to see it. The movie you saw on your first date. The one you loved so much you went back to see it multiple times, to the point where you could quote the dialogue.

And if a film like that had a really terrific soundtrack, all it takes is hearing that music again to make you remember where you were “when.”

Celebrating some of that great movie music, from “Gone with the Wind” to the huge variety of scores by John Williams to even Disney tunes, was the idea behind the Adrian Symphony Orchestra's Saturday concert, “A Night at the Oscars.”

As the name implies, the program focused on music from Academy Award-winning films. Now, if ASO Music Director John Thomas Dodson had done what most other conductors would and programmed Oscar-winning scores, or even scores from Best Picture films, it would have been a concert pretty much like any other such performance.

But thinking outside the box, an art which the ASO long ago mastered under Dodson’s leadership, the concert went much further afield. It was still music which any film lover knows well, but including movies whose Oscars were for something like Best Achivement in Makeup made for a really interesting mix.

It also gave audience members the opportunity to hear some music they might never get to otherwise, like “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “Batman: The Dark Knight, “The Return of the King,” or “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” which provided a rollicking conclusion to the first half of the program.

Each of these works is a gem in its own right, and interestingly enough, when separated from the movie it was written for, it takes on a whole new character. So does a work like the score to “Apollo 13,” which really does sound, in all its can-do all-American spirit, like something Aaron Copland would have written.

The ASO’s musicians made their way through this wealth of music almost consistently in fine fashion. Overall, the orchestra sounded great; one or two of the pieces seemed like a bit of a hard slog for them, but most of the program was brilliantly performed and two of the works, “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Apollo 13,” afforded cellist Jim Anderson and trumpeter Lori Bitz, respectively, the opportunity for some really nice solo work.

The orchestra was joined for the four Disney songs on the program — “You’ll Be in My Heart” from “Tarzan,” “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from “The Lion King,” “Colors of the Wind” from “Pocahontas,” and “Go the Distance” from “Hercules” — by four first-rate vocalists.

Michael Lackey is well known in these parts as a singer and actor, and Stephanie Stephan is a familiar presence too, especially onstage at the Croswell Opera House. Adrian College history professor Stephanie Jass is best known around here as one of the most popular “Jeopardy!” champions ever, so it’s great to see her in yet another capacity. And Adam Smith, the son of Nate and Kathryn Smith, is starting to make a name for himself in the popular music world.

It’s surely no accident that each of these singers was paired with a tune that worked especially well for them. Stephan sang “You’ll Be in My Heart” just beautifully, while Jass was terrific with “Colors of the Wind.” Smith has just the right voice for the light pop-style music of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and sang it very well, while Lackey was spectacular in the powerful “Go the Distance.” And all of this was a really nice addition to the program by giving audiences the opportunity to hear some of the work today’s songwriters are doing in the Disney realm.

The concert also gave one ASO supporter one of those moments orchestral-music lovers sometimes dream about. By being the high bidder for the opportunity at the last ASO auction, Yolanda Borras got to take the podium, baton in hand, to guest-conduct the orchestra for “Superman.” She was clearly having the time of her life and it was great fun to watch.

Another fun aspect of the program was having Erin Satchell Yuen as the narrator. As an actress herself, Yuen had the stage presence to ham her script up perfectly, making each of her entrances in a different costume and doing something wacky every time. The couple of glitches that arose during transitions between musical pieces made the program not flow as well as it should have, but that’s a minor flaw.

There was a lot to this concert that had nothing to do with the actual music, from the “paparazzi” mobbing concert-goers on their way into the hall to a movie-themed photo booth at which audience members could pose with props and get their pictures taken. It all really added to the experience, and given that concerts as the ASO does them are never stuffy affairs, this one was definitely as far from stuffy as could be. Between the music itself and the atmosphere surrounding it, it was certainly a unique and thoroughly entertaining night “at the Oscars.”

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